


Out of the cold desert

by laughingpineapple



Category: The Last Remnant
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Probably not even pre-femslash but Emmy/Irina-friendly, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 04:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15833820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: The whole world changed on the day her mother's death was avenged and there is no going back. A city moves. Duty and the looming prospect of journeys in the last days of Balterossa, as the sands retake their kingdom.





	Out of the cold desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lassarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/gifts).



> Regardless of what the wiki says, I distinctly remember Emma saying in Numor that the Honeywells' journey focused specifically on finding a Remnant. Meaning that the Remnant-less Emmy hadn't finished her journey when she joined Athlum's generals, meaning that (unless snatching Namul Niram in disc 2 counts for the purpose of her journey) she's way out of luck once the game ends and she could technically go back to journeying. Plenty of traditions will have to change, anyway... and even whole-ass cities for that matter, seeing how at least two of them really depended on their core Remnants to exist as they did.

 

  1. **A line woven through the desert**



 

When the shards of the Tao Tie still hung in the air, sparkling in Balterossa’s morning, and the city's wells were full, and its trees still green, the warrior Glenys looked far into the West and said,  _ History shall meet us there _ . She did not ask for women and men to follow her, but many felt the pull of her faith (or her memories, or her spite) and soon a caravan had formed, following in her footsteps, hurrying to bask in the blinding light of her chainmail reflecting and refracting the desert sun.

Legends would say that flowers bloomed in the wake of that procession, which people came to call the Caravan of Miracles, as if Glenys’ march had called to water that ran deep underground, drawing it from Balterossa's reservoirs, wasting it on the desert as the city began to wither. But precious few miracles were left in those days when all Remnants had disappeared, and if water fled from Balterossa, it was because its protector was no longer there to draw it from its subterranean rivers and gift it to the city's wells. The Sand Sea Gate’s prosperity was built on an old lie: with the Tao Tie gone, deep tunnels long left dry would once again overflow, reaching past the Cauldron’s ruins to resurface in faraway lands to the West.

 

Emmy Honeywell saw among the dunes that trail of blues and golds, of rolled-up carpets, personal belongings wrapped in rich cloths, poles and tents and pointy brass domes atop the palanquins. She recognised the ancient spear and the banner of the caravan’s head, and spurred her steed to greet Glenys and make her presence known to her, as was becoming custom of the former comrades in arms who had fought together in the Sacred Lands.

They met under a stone arch that had stood in the sand from the times of Siebenbur and the old kingdoms, Emmy stiff and still in her Athlumian insigniae, Glenys resting on her spear,crowned by the setting sun like a painting of old. Taking in the sight of her, Emmy saw the modest, old-fashioned woman she remembered from the days spent fighting together, carrying herself with the warrior's composure they had all come to respect. Yet something had come undone in her in the final days of their joint struggle, and that omen was now in full bloom, filling her, beating like a second heart. The determination that shaped her with echoes of revenge and the radiant honor she draped herself with reached far, far beyond the squabbles of the Honeywell clan that Emmy trifled herself with.

“My homeland was destroyed,” Glenys said.

Emmy nodded. So much had been lost. “This is a new era. We can rebuild.”

“The water calls to me like the blood of my kingdom. Do you feel its call too?”

“All I can hear is the wind.”

“Then come and I will teach you. Or let me go, and find your call. My home awaits.”

Emmy shivered. This talk felt like shining a torch atop a vast abyss. She could lose her balance, give in and fall for an eternity into a dark pride so much older than her ancestors.

 

Instead she recoiled, bid her farewell and rode on toward the Lady Bertrude’s residence with an unhealed wound suddenly bleeding and pulsating where her sense of duty should have been, a failure next to the desert queen, forever scared, forever inadequate.

  
  


  1. **An expanse of crates is criss-crossed by new alleys**



 

_ My Lord David, _

_ The Lady Bertrude extends her thanks for Athlum’s diplomatic effort in assisting her country's direst hour - the whole continent knows your kindness, and I trust that Torgal and Pagus are being met with similar appreciation in the wake of the Blue Elf and the Gwayn, and will describe this new world to you in finer words than my pen can conjure. One day soon, my Lord, I wish with all my heart that you will once again feel tempted to leave the safe nest that is Athlum and indulge in the beauty of the road, and see for yourself all the changes that the end of the Remnants have brought upon the land, and see growth in this, and new beginnings. But as it is true that we were raised as brother and sister, so now we are tied in grief, and while I do not claim to know the extent of your loss, please remember that you are not alone. I shall endeavour to write often, and Blocter, friend, brother and General, is there with you, and you are remembered with genuine affection from Baaluk to Undelwalt. We cannot let this sadness win. They would not want this for us. As these matters of the heart often go, let me tell this to you in firm and certain letters when I could not be so sure in telling it to myself: they would not want this for us.  _

 

_ And as I speak of the wonders of the road, I find myself asking you, my Lord, to cut me off from those very marvels and approve a change in my mission. Please, let me remain here in Balterossa for a time. Lord David, the Gate of the Sand Sea is dead, all water drained from it. Half its people remains loyal to the Lady Bertrude and to Lady Charlotte, looking for a new home on safer, milder slopes of the Royotian mountains along with Paris’ people. The remaining half keeps joining the ranks of the Caravan of Miracles under Glenys’ guidance (a guidance which, I will say, is not mortal - history shall be her judge on whether it is divine). A whole city is moving, torn in half! They would bring their homeland's stones along with them if they could, and some do, rebuilding entire rooms on the back of the great beasts of burden, and I cannot turn away from their plight.  _

 

_ Frankly speaking, I am no diplomat. When my swords are not needed, my voice is not missed either. Let me instead make myself useful here, in Athlum’s name, and supervise this colossal undertaking, lead the workers and be a worker myself, and guard the empty houses! Already piles of chests and crates are amassed in the squares of the city, and long lists of possessions are pinned to the stone walls, and cart wheels are oiled and the great beasts are fed ahead of the big journey, and yet the work has barely started! For the life and the future of the people of Balterossa, my Lord, let me be the help you promised to this city. _

 

_ Wishing the best to you and to Athlum, our mother who is forever alive _

 

_ Emma Honeywell II _

  
  


  1. **Stonemasons cut the bas-reliefs free**



 

Torgal let her talk. It was, he knew, the only way of wrangling an opinion out of the reserved young General, who was growing more and more into her mother's sternness but still straggled for a fraction of Emma's confidence. He nodded along to her improvised treatise on how to tie together scaffolds and where to keep the screws, and a diversion on how the palace library might as well have been a collection of rocks with how those richly decorated books weighted, and how by then it was a well-labeled and neatly boxed collection of rocks if nothing else, and ultimately gained a more intimate knowledge of yama back pains than both the mitra and the sovani had ever envisioned, despite their years spent shoulder to shoulder with one of the big fellows. Emmy's brow was furrowed as she talked about the daily realities of splitting Balterossa in two and moving both halves far away. As she massaged her aching muscles, she looked ready to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Torgal poured her another cup of dark brew, lest she took to snoring in the comfortable corner of the tea house she had picked for their meeting, smothered in dusty pillows. The Ant's Den was not the city's finest establishment, its simple cups and roughly stitched curtains unfit for foreign dignitaries, not that any embassy would have ever wandered far enough down the coils of the Spirale market to stumble upon it. But when everyone else had packed up and not even a potted cactus remained, when sand had already filled the three lowermost levels and threatened to seep through its door, the Ant still served its drinks, a burst of colors, lights and smells amid the deserted underground street.

 

Emmy sipped her tea, feeling Torgal’s gaze on her, his curiosity. He cared. That was why he'd made a detour to the vanishing city in the first place, to come see her and look after her. His presence made that little hole in the ground feel like home, and if she had been younger, much younger, she would have rested her head against his dark fur, and known that she was safe from all harm. She knew what he wanted and she would tell him, eventually, but it couldn't hurt to let this moment linger - if the twirl in his whiskers was any indication, he didn't mind, either. So she let him talk as well, if only because nobody else ever did (their loss), about tea and cinnamon, strong rains in Athlum, about their liege who would be strong enough to pull himself together in the end, about nosy qsiti up in everyone's business and in their own most of all.

 

Their pots were empty and the sun had long left the depths of Spirale to the shadows when Torgal crossed two arms, put the remaining elbows on the table and stared right through her. 

“You want to know why I am still here,” Emmy said.

Torgal nodded. The work was done, the last caravans were leaving, yet she had not returned to Athlum. Or to her journey.

And indeed Emmy used to be on a journey, two years ago. A lifetime. She cleared her throat. After spending so much time drowning herself in manual labor to avoid thinking about it, about Emma, about Remnants (no matter how hard the gaping hole in the middle of the city made that last bit), she felt ready to cough it up and stop letting it fester inside.

“Torgal.”

“I am listening.”

“I do not know how much my mother told you of the Honeywells’ journey. As we are accepted into adulthood, we leave to prove ourselves - to bring honor to our lineage.”

“The way I heard this tale, two decades ago, your grandfather looked for a Remnant who could bring peace to the kingdoms. Your mother followed in his footsteps.”

If he knew that much, then Emmy had to say no more. She met his gaze with the quiet desperation of a young woman who had left as a girl to find an instrument of peace for her homeland and had missed her mother being stabbed to death with the very sword that represented their homeland. And when her duties had been fulfilled, the war was over and she could have left again, there were no Remnants left to find, no miracles, no ways to make up for any of that loss, for not having been there.

“Is this your new journey? One made not of steps but of labor?”

Maybe. She retreated into her pillows.

“You have long proven yourself, General Honeywell. Look proud.”

“I cannot come home empty-handed.” And she could not even leave, she could not think of herself as being on a journey, or the sheer terror of having her whole life have been for naught would fill the horizon and crush her. But he could not say that out loud, not even to him.

“Then bear the standard of Athlum in the world - I come with Lord David's blessing to your mission. Just don't let the desert swallow you whole.”

A line of sand trickled past the market's inner wall, like an hourglass that could not be turned. There was, at least, time for one more cup of tea. 

  
  


  1. **The air is clear, dust settles unchallenged. On a faraway terrace, the last wine bottle is opened**



 

A sect of doomsday Remnant devotees had channeled their desperation into building a life-sized effigy of the Tao Tie out of the chopped wood of the city's trees, as doomsday Remnants devotees were wont to do in those days when all certainties had tumbled down and the world was reshaping itself. In Balterossa, all they could accomplish before the palm wood ran out was a bare skeleton, near half of one of the twin insects’ height; when they saw their efforts were for naught, they packed and left on their own, and nobody ever heard from them again, while their work was left to rot.

Emmy was not surprised to learn that Sheryl - en route to Fornstrand, so very lost, and having come forward to make her presence known to her, as had become custom of the former comrades in arms who had fought together in the Sacred Lands - wanted to climb it, and asked her to lead that little trip.

The two women made their way up that carcass of ladders and scaffolds, as the abandoned Balterossan buildings got smaller and indistinguishable beneath them. Eventually, they reached the last crossbeams and sat across them, feeling the sky above them and the desert underneath. Sheryl's hair got ruffled by the wind. Her smile was fixed and distant.

“Fornstrand again?” asked Emmy. 

“Fornstrand again. Sooner or later.”

Emmy furrowed her brow. “The Syltique is gone.”

Sheryl gave a soft laugh, and bitter, if anything about that strange girl could ever be described as such. “We lost that beauty, didn't we? It was so pretty… all the lights came together, like sparks from a fire, so many sparks and they didn't burn… are we far now? We're so high up, I bet that if there were any lights left on the shore, we could see them…”

“We are very far, Sheryl.”

“There aren't any left, anyway. All gone. I could feel it, you know? Like a candle went out in my head.”

“But you're still going.”

“Of course I'm still going!” Sheryl shook her head. She looked at ease up there in the air, like she had always belonged among the clouds. “What we felt at the fest… the Syltique was like… the centerpiece, but the thing was in the water, and in the sky, and in the small crabs that made their nest on the rocks. And you can look at a centerpiece first and think how rich and fancy it is, and that puts you in a good mood, but what keeps you going is the food at the table. I'm finding it all again, light by light. You know? It's not Fornstrand I'm looking for, it's… the getting there.” She took Emmy's hand, bruised and callous, and stared at it as if to divine some portentous future. “And you?”

“I… don't know. I failed once. I think I'm scared.” May the sky be merciful and keep her confession safe from the ears of the world below. “I was useful here, but now it's over.” 

“ _ You _ failed?”

“I knew what I needed to do. I didn't make it in time. Now I never will.”

“But you still need to have done something, don't you? Like when you go out for groceries and the stall is closed so you buy a little charm instead.”

“...you could say that.”

“Can you write down all the colors of the butterflies you'll see?”

Emmy rested her head against the wooden plank and looked at the infinite blue above. Maybe she could.

  
  


  1. **Only the sand remains**



 

And when the proud desert city was left lifeless and still, scrubbed empty of all traces of all the lives that had ever given it meaning, Emmy alone remained, patrolling the deserted streets on her steed, looking at the horizon and waiting for her fears to lift. She thought she had entrusted her life's burdens to the caravans, loading each crate with her own aching arms, working herself to exhaustion, so that when the last of them left, she would be free from her past. But the streets were clear and the nightmares still with her.

On a blinding bright morning, when the air was heavy with doubts and regrets, Irina Sykes walked through the Eastern gate, drained and bone-weary yet radiant in her determination.Her hair flowed behind her, undone, and her blue vest had taken the colors of dust. She wore her purpose on her sleeve. She had traveled half the continent to find her brother again; she would not rest until she found a way to bring him back. Seeing an old ally greet her at the city's doors, she gave Emmy her sweetest smile and fainted in her arms. And so Emmy nursed her back to health in the shadows of the old cafe, marvelling at her every breath. Eventually, she bowed to the heir of Marshall and offered her a ride out of that place, for Balterossa had no leads nor secrets to offer anymore, not to either of them. 

 

With Irina's arms safely wrapped around her waist, keeping Royotia’s mountains clear ahead of them, Emmy knew, for the first time in years, that they would make it. They would find Rush or they would not, but she would not allow Irina to lose herself in the quest like she had in hers. They would see all the people of this new world, be the face of Athlum to them, and count the colors of the butterflies, and in time, slowly but surely, they would find themselves, and that would be enough.


End file.
